Feb. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Men who show signs of balding at age
20 are twice as likely to develop prostate cancer in their
lifetimes as those who keep their manes or lose them later,
according to a French study.

Neither balding at 30 or 40 years of age, nor the pattern
of hair loss, pointed to any increased risk of developing the
disease, the researchers wrote in the medical journal Annals of
Oncology. Early hair loss wasn’t associated with an earlier
onset of cancer or a more severe course of the disease, the
study found.

Researchers have long known that men who more readily
convert the male hormone testosterone into a form called DHT
have a higher risk of prostate cancer and are more likely to go
bald. Understanding that relationship better may help doctors
identify men who may be helped by cancer screening, said Michael
Yassa, a radiation oncologist who helped conduct the study.

“There’s a big debate about who can really benefit from
prostate cancer screening” with the PSA test that’s used to
predict risk of the malignancy in men, said Yassa, who now works
at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital in Montreal.

Studies have shown that men who have elevated levels of the
protein measured by the PSA test don’t always have prostate
cancer. Some may end up getting unnecessary procedures and
surgeries based on the test results. Those findings have raised
questions about whether PSA testing is useful and which men
should get the test.

Bald at 20?

“We’re saying ‘OK, if we can’t have consensus on the
general population, can we get a consensus on people who are at
higher risk,’” Yassa said yesterday in a telephone interview.
“With balding we don’t need to do any tests. When they walk
into the clinic, we can say, ‘Were you bald at 20 or 30? If so,
you may be at higher risk of getting prostate cancer.’”

Giraud and his colleagues questioned 669 men, of whom 388
had prostate cancer, about their hair status at different ages.
The men classified their hair pattern according to a modified
version of a widely used measure of baldness called the
Hamilton-Norwood scale, and the researchers asked physicians
about details of the participants’ illness.

The cancer forms in the tissue of the prostate, a gland in
the male reproductive system lodged between the bladder and the
rectum, according to the U.S. National Cancer Institute. There
were an estimated 217,730 new cases of prostate cancer in the
U.S. last year, and 32,050 deaths, according to the institute.

Unnecessary Treatment

Screening men for prostate cancer saves few lives and may
lead to unnecessary treatment, according to a study published
last year in the British Medical Journal.

The American Cancer Society, in its revised guidelines,
says men should only be screened for the disease if they have
been told of the possibility of misleading test results and side
effects of treatments that in some cases may pose more harm than
the cancer itself. Side effects of therapies include
incontinence, erectile dysfunction and other complications,
according to the National Cancer Institute.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent
panel of experts composed mostly of physicians, says there isn’t
enough evidence to assess the balance of benefits and harms in
men under age 75 and recommends against prostate cancer
screening in men 75 or older, according to its website. The men
in the study who had prostate cancer were diagnosed from the
ages of 46 to 84.

The results of the study aren’t enough to make firm
recommendations that men who go bald while they’re young should
get PSA tests at a certain age, Yassa said. They support the
idea that the mechanisms that lead to hair loss and development
of prostate cancer are related and that more study may better
explain the links, he said.